“It's okay,” I said. He looked like he was going to have a total breakdown. “My girlfriend can take me.”
“That brunette?” he asked.
“Yeah.”
“You guys seem…close.”
“We are.”
“Good,” he said with a nod. “I mean…that's what I was worried about. I didn't know if…if you had anyone.”
“I'm okay,” I said.
“Good,” he said again. He nodded briefly. “So…maybe call me in a couple days or something?”
He looked so hopeful, it was just…cute. Weird to say about a guy who had to be about forty or so, but it fit.
“Sure,” I said. I looked at the card in my hand.
Professor Thomas Gardner
Chicago Art Institute
312-555-7289
An art professor? My skin felt kind of tingly, and a bunch of little explosions were going off in my head as more pieces to the Malone family puzzle started falling into place.
“You're an artist?”
“Well, yeah,” he said. “I mean, I teach it, but I do sell some paintings and stuff, too. Sometimes.”
“Cool,” I said.
“You think?” Again, he sounded surprised.
“Yeah,” I said.
He paused for a long moment.
“Do you still sketch?” he asked quietly.
I shrugged.
“Not for a while,” I admitted.
“Now might be a good time…” His sentence trailed off, and he ran his hand through his hair again. He looked back down at me and took a deep breath. “I’m not very good at this.”
I smiled back.
“You’re okay,” I reassured him.
I heard footsteps and felt Nicole's hands grip the back of the chair.
“Thomas?” she said quietly.
“Yeah, um…Nicole?” I turned slightly to look at her. “This is Thomas Gardner…my…um…my father. I guess.”
Her eyes went wide, and I could see she was checking him out, looking from him to me as she made comparisons in her head. We had already discussed my biological father while we were in the hospital—Doctor Winchester had been trying to determine how much I remembered—but Nicole and I hadn’t really talked about it at length.